Volume 4: The Great Bewitchment of the Underhanded Battle

Chapter 1: Cursed α

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He screamed.

Ryner screamed.

He looked into despair. No… at the darkness deeper than despair.

“……”

His face scrunched up to the point that it was painful, but he couldn’t avert his eyes.

It was vulgar. The scene before him was sickening. But he couldn’t avert his eyes. He was forced to look. At the monster.

It was a woman.

A woman that rose from Vois Fiurelle’s shadow.

Somehow, it was someone who Ryner knew. He shouldn’t have known. But he did.

It was a Goddess.

The Unprecedented Goddess.

Ryner didn’t know why he knew her name, but he did.

No… it wasn’t Ryner.

It was the ‘something’ within Ryner that knew her name.

The ‘something’ inside of him.

The ‘something’ that lived deep inside of the cursed pentagram that had risen in his eyes.

His eyes widened and widened. The wider they got, the redder and madder the pentagram became. And that redness gazed at the Goddess that had appeared before him. He stared at the Goddess who had risen from the depths of darkness with his red eyes. At her face—her hideous face, so ugly that he could hardly bear to look at her.

She had no eyes. Instead, there was something strange alive inside of her eye sockets. Something insect-like. She had no nose. Her mouth was vertical instead of horizontal, and she had fangs so large that she was unable to close it fully.

But it wasn’t as though her face alone would make him scream. It wasn’t because he was looking at some living being that was without a doubt inhuman that he screamed.

He had screamed for a different reason entirely.

“……”

It was his eyes.

He could feel his eyes trying to tear free of himself. They were ripping themselves out. They were definitely ripping themselves out.

At least, it felt like they were. It hurt like they were.

It was like there was something inside of them. Something that was doing its best to break free of his eyes.

Ryner tried to cover his eyes to keep that from happening. He frantically tried to lift his hands to his face and cover them and keep them from ripping open.

But he couldn’t.

His hands wouldn’t move.

His body wouldn’t move.

He just felt as though both of his eyes would explode to free the ‘something’ inside of them.

“…You’re very late… Unprecedented Goddess.”

A voice suddenly descended upon them.

It wasn’t the Goddess’ voice. It wasn’t the shrill, earth-shattering voice of the Goddess that had descended upon them just a moment ago.

This voice was low-pitched and dark. It beat down inside of his head, rattling around in the rampage inside of his eyes.

The Goddess laughed loudly, her vertical mouth parting farther. The eye shaped, insect-like lifeforms within her eyes looked down at him. “Alpha, is it… To think that we would meet here… This is quite a change from our usual procedure,” the Goddess said.

Ryner’s eyes spoke in reply. “The situation has changed. The Demon has betrayed the Hero…”

The Goddess’ eyeless sockets widened. “Hoh… So rather than the false Alpha Stigma… your host is the real one…”

“Yeah. He is a fragment of the demon… he who signed the contract, the Solver of All Formulas.”

Ryner couldn’t comprehend the meaning of their conversation. It sounded like it was something very significant, but he didn’t have the information necessary to properly understand it. At the very least, he caught that the being inside of the red pentagram in his eyes knew this Goddess. But who was this ‘host’ who they were talking about?

It couldn’t be…

“Me?” Ryner whispered.

The conversation between the two inhumans from another world continued.

The Goddess spoke. “Why is he alive, then? Are you not the curse to erase him, the Solver of All Formulas? Why are you not doing your job?”

“…That situation too has changed. His mother… broke the contract so as to save his life. I am unable to function as normal due to Attfahl’s curse,” Ryner’s eyes said.

Ryner could hardly breathe. His mother? This guy just mentioned his mother, didn’t he? And Attfahl—that was a word that Ryner knew.

It was something that the woman who saved him before when a strange man who had tried to kill him drove him into a dream-like world where a red-feathered monster had attacked him.

He recalled her words.

The words she said as she saved him from being devoured by that monster, the same shade of scarlet as his Alpha Stigma.

“Just hurry. The curse of Attfahl that Lieral casted for us won’t hold this guy for much longer… so…”

Yeah. He felt like that was what she’d said.

But right now, the Goddess standing in front of him was still talking with his eyes. That woman…

“…My mother…? That woman… is my…?”

Suddenly, his body was attacked by a great force, strong enough to break him.

In reality, nothing had happened to him. But he understood that something inside of him had changed.

It was as though a seal—a dark veil—had been lifted, releasing his important memories. His most precious memories.

Her name.

He remembered her name.

It was the name that he held most precious of them all.

Lieral Lieutolu… and his wife, Iruna Lieutolu.

“……”

Those two names.

“…My… my parents’ names,” Ryner whispered as his lost memories flooded his mind.

Forgotten memories. Memories of his parents who he had never known, and memories of the first five years of his life.

They were memories from before the day that he had gained consciousness as a boy who existed in the center of a battlefield, surrounded by dead bodies.

Memories of his kind and noble father, and of his mother who had loved him very much.

Those memories.

He nearly screamed at the thought of forgetting them. He nearly cried.

But he couldn’t.

Because his eyes… had been stolen… by the monster inside of them.

The monster spoke. “Back then, the gears had all already started their descent into madness. They destroyed all of the legends. Omega, too. He was supposed to devour Eris Lied, but he’s the one getting devoured instead.”

The Goddess’ hideous face wrinkled into deeper ugliness. “Omega was devoured? The Weaver of All Formulas shouldn’t have had that kind of power. What is happening?”

“I don’t know. All that I know is that… that man—the monster who devours the magic around him, Lucile Eris—does not seem to be the Eris Lied who we know. It is unthinkable that he could be a fraction of my master, the Weaver of All Formulas. He was too… too powerful to have been him.”

The Goddess folded her arms in thought. The gesture was suspiciously human-like, given that every other part of her was hideously inhuman. “What should we do? Should we not kill him? It will all end if we don’t kill him, won’t it? If the Mad Hero devours him, the Weaver of All Formulas, and the Solver of All Formulas, everything will end.”

His eyes responded. “The synopsis is beginning to change. In exchange for the great power that the Weaver of All Formulas has amassed, he… our host… has lost his love for the Hero. He is standing on a level that rivals the Hero’s, and began saving him. He intends to dive past the Fallen Hero’s madness and pull his sanity out from within.”

“…Ha, return the Hero’s sanity? In short, he’s on our side even now?”

“That’s right.”

“I can hardly believe it.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Hm…”

The Goddess looked up at the sky. What she was seeing there with her empty sockets, Ryner didn’t know… but whatever it was that she saw past the limits of his sky… she watched it for quite some time.

And then.

“But with information that this servant has handed over to us… it feels as though the synopsis changed. Isn’t that right? Human.”

Vois, who was grinning by Ryner’s side, nodded. “Yes, Miss Goddess. This man, Mr. Ryner Lute, will advance in order to kill Sion Astal.”

“Hm,” the Goddess responded. “So he will be of use to us?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“…I see. Then I will believe you. You, who has betrayed humans in order to make allies of Goddesses… despite promises…”

“Fear not,” Vois interrupted. “I fully intend on offering you Sion Astal’s head, exactly as promised.”

“Mm. Then I will disappear. Let us make him our ally—as for Alpha, there is another system we will assign to him.”

Ryner’s eyes answered. “Another system? What do you mean?”

“Watch over him and, if necessary, lend your power to him.”

“Haha, ha… Lend him my power? Lend this guy my power? You want me to aid the Demon. Got it. That alone means that the world really has gone crazy.”

The Goddess dipped back into Vois’ shadow as she responded. “I have never known this world to be sane.”

With that, she disappeared.

The blinding scarlet of his pentagram disappeared, too.

At the same time, the power that bound Ryner in place disappeared.

“……”

But he still couldn’t stand.

All the power had left his body.

He understood why. It was from blood loss. The troops from Roland had sliced his right shoulder nearly to the bone, after all, and his blood had been pouring out ever since. It had to be reaching the point of lethality.

“…This sucks,” Ryner choked out feebly. He was dizzy beyond belief. His eyes were open, but the light of the sun was quickly going dark. It really did suck. So much had happened. His mind was a mess. His consciousness was muddy. It was at the point where he didn’t even care if everything went black.

“You’ll be okay even if you faint,” Vois said. “I will close both your and Ms. Ferris’ wounds, so please, rest comfortably. We can save the details for after you wake up…”

After that, he couldn’t even hear Vois. He was too far gone.

Everything was black.

He could die, and for some reason, right now… he was okay with that.

After all, he remembered now.

He remembered what was happening.

Right now, he was looking at the parts made to fill the hole inside of him. It had never felt like it was enough, but now…

He remembered the parents who had given birth to him, and he remembered, just now, that his eyes, the cursed eyes that he’d borne his whole life… that there was a reason for it all.

Those thoughts spun around in his mind.

He spun them around so that he could remember everything that he’d forgotten.

“……”

And then he completely lost consciousness.

---

A while later.

“……”

Ferris Eris regained consciousness and opened her eyes just so. When she did, an usual sight spread out before her.

It was a windless night, but clouds were still moving in the sky… or so she thought, but when she stared a little longer, she realized that the clouds weren’t what was moving—she was.

Everything was wobbling. She looked around. It appeared that someone had placed her in a wagon and she was now being transported somewhere.

“…Hm,” she mumbled. “What happened?”

She tried to raise her body, but when she did, a fierce pain rushed through her.

“……”

She didn’t whimper. She didn’t let the pain show on her face. She was as expressionless as always as she checked herself for wounds left by Roland’s troops who had defeated her.

Her wounds had been treated and wrapped with gauze. She was no longer bleeding.

She tried looking under the gauze, and a hint of confusion appeared on her face.

“…Strange,” she whispered.

Something was definitely strange. Her wounds had not been so shallow as for this small amount of gauze to stop the bleeding and save her. They would have had to cauterize them or stitch them closed—gauze alone could not have saved her. Even so, her deep wounds had been wrapped up neatly with gauze and that was that. It looked like she would be fine now. Like she didn’t have to do anything at all, and they would heal on their own as they were.

“……”

Ferris’ eyes narrowed. She again surveyed her surroundings.

What most interested her was the wagon. The wagon that was carrying her. She had never seen the people who were driving it. They were wearing pure black armor.

“…Who are they? Who has captured me?”

Was it Roland’s army, or an unknown third party? Realistically, she doubted that it was Roland. Their armor was typically white. It was very different from what these soldiers were wearing.

So who were they, and what kind of situation had they placed her in?

“……”

She fought to recall what had happened before she lost consciousness.

If she recalled correctly, she had been protecting Ryner from Roland’s army and sustained harsh wounds. But that battle had ended in their success. They were able to repel Roland’s army and escape safely.

That was the last thing she remembered.

She and Ryner had been leaving the battlefield on horseback to meet up with the Nelphan army, but she left the rest in Ryner’s hands and lost consciousness from blood loss along the way.

“……”

What exactly happened after that?

Who were these soldiers clad in black armor?

And what about Ryner? Where was he?

“……”

Her heart suddenly felt as though it would beat straight through her chest.

She tried, but couldn’t calm down.

Her head was a mess.

What about Ryner? He had sustained just as grave of wounds as she had. Because he tried to protect her.

That awful and stupid man had gone mad and fought to protect her. In doing so, he too sustained a deep wound. It had deeply cut into his arm.

“……”

It was a horrible wound. One that would kill him sooner than later if he didn’t tend to it.

“…That idiot. He left me… and disappeared?” Ferris whispered, and this time it was almost a whimper.

She was able to lift her body just a little. She did so quietly, slowly, erasing her presence to keep the soldiers at the head of the wagon from noticing her.

She surveyed her surroundings. She tried to take in the details of the situation she had been placed in—but then—

“Ah, Ms. Ferris. You’re awake?”

She heard a voice. A voice that she had heard somewhere before. Her eyes darted towards it, and sure enough, a boy who she had seen before was beside her.

He was about fourteen or fifteen years old. He had black hair and shrewd but somehow courteous black eyes. He was wearing something that resembled a shrine maiden’s outfit.

Vois Fiurelle.

She was pretty sure that was his name.

He was a perverted boy who was essentially the don of the organization that controlled the Iyet Republic, where she and Ryner had ended up on orders from Sion to search the continent for Heroic Relics.

Vois looked at her and spoke. “How are your wounds, Ms. Ferris? I’ve used a healing Rule Fragment to more or less fix your wounds, and I believe I did a good job, but regardless, there are less excellent people who would have died from those wounds… So? Shall I destroy those dirty panties too?” he asked as he reached towards the skirt of her dress to do just that.

“Wh, wa—what are you doing, fiend!?” Ferris asked and dodged in a hurry. She forced herself to stand up, then moved her foot towards Vois’ face to slam it into him.

“Gyaaahh! ♡” Vois squeed as he went flying out of the back of the wagon.

The men in the wagon were quick to react. They all turned on her, killing energy emitting from their bodies. They reached for their swords.

“……”

Ferris looked back at the soldiers, and a vague smile crossed her lips. “What are your intentions? Vois. Do you truly believe that soldiers on their level can fight face-to-face with me?” she asked as she hovered her hand over the sword fastened to her waist… or so she tried. There was no sword. Whether Vois stole it or if it was lost to the battlefield, she had no idea.

Either way, she was currently left without a weapon.

But that didn’t have much effect on her now. If she was now weaponless, then it was fine if she just stole a sword. All that she had to do was defeat these soldiers and take Vois hostage. Then she could interrogate him on where she ought to be—where Ryner was.

She simulated their battle in her mind. She easily understood it to be her overwhelming victory. Enemies like this were simple, so she immediately began to fight.

Her power flooded through her slim body. She wouldn’t fight with her muscles. She would fight by bouncing off her feet. She would fight by flowing through the air. She had it down to an art. She had an intimate understanding of the workings of the world—she understood the atmosphere, friction, resistance, weight, speed… She would use all of those forces to her advantage and fight with her own limitless speed.

She was faster.

More efficient.

Stronger.

She put all of those things into her body to attain a speed past what humans could see—

But then.

“Alright, Ms. Ferris, let’s stop there. I don’t have any intention of fighting you, you know?” Vois said, but in the time that it took for him to say it, Ferris had already stolen a sword from one of the soldiers and had it held to Vois’ neck.

Vois looked down at the sword. He had to understand that he was at death’s door with a sword resting on his neck like that, but even so, the superficial smile on his lips didn’t waver.

He just kept smiling. “My, Ms. Ferris, I see that you’re just as sadistic as ever. All it took was me peeping at your panties for you to—”

Ferris pressed the sword against his neck. “Silence. I’m taking you hostage. I am the one who will be asking questions, and you are the one who will answer them, and you will say nothing more than what I have asked of you.”

The soldier whose sword she stole spoke. “Get your hands off of Lord Vois—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence. Ferris didn’t let him. She spun her leg around and slammed it into his stomach, sending him flying. The other soldiers made to attack her, but she held Vois out in response. “Could you not see that he is my hostage?” she asked. “The relationship between his head and body is quite precarious at the moment.”

That stopped the soldiers in their tracks.

Vois raised his head. “She’s serious, everyone, so please put your weapons down! The two of us are old friends, so please, be at ease.”

Ferris’ sword never moved from Vois’ neck. “I have no memory of becoming your friend.”

“Wow, that’s shocking. You’re joking, right?”

“I’m serious. I have no intention of playing your stupid games. Answer my questions.”

Vois smiled his so-called innocent smile. “That’s fine. Please feel free to ask me anything.”

So she asked about her sole worry - the reason she was flustered. “Ryner… where is Ryner?”

That had been worrying her this whole time.

Why? She had such a bad feeling about this. Ryner had been fatally wounded. That cut on his shoulder could easily have resulted in his death. But that wasn’t the only reason for her unease. She couldn’t help but feel that another, greater danger awaited him.

Her own impatience was irritating her.

Her own weakness was irritating her.

Why? Why was she so worked up about this?

“……”

Something bad was happening. She at least knew that much. Without a doubt, something absolutely awful was happening.

She didn’t know how she knew that, but regardless, she was sure that it was true.

She glared at Vois, eyes narrowed. “Answer me quickly. Where is Ryner now, and what is he doing?”

Vois raised his eyebrows as if surprised. “Ah, so that’s your biggest worry in this situation, is it? Oh, man… you two are just as close as ever. I’m seriously burning with jealousy. Though my personal preference is for a younger girl of about seven—”

“Shut up, brat. If you continue to talk about such pointless things, I’ll take your life to its pointless end,” Ferris said. She pushed the sword against his neck, cutting it just enough for a red line to start leaking blood.

Vois looked troubled. “Uwah, so you are serious. That’s fine, then. I’m okay with this kind of roleplay too… but should I just tell you? My whole head will go flying otherwise…”

“……”

“Mr. Ryner is in that wagon over there. See, in the one behind you. You have nothing to worry about, Ms. Ferris. I’ve already treated his wounds t—”

Ferris didn’t wait for him to finish. She yanked him up with her fist balled in his dark hair.

“Owie!”

She ignored him and turned her attention to the wagon that Vois had motioned to, but even then the unease inside of her just wouldn’t settle down. Her imagination had sprung up awful scenarios that plagued her mind and dominated her.

It was horrible.

Truly horrible.

It was even worse than death.

It was about a monster that took the shape of a woman entangled with Ryner, who violated him endlessly, down to his soul—

“……”

She had no idea why she was imagining such a thing. What could it mean? How had she even come up with that ridiculous fantasy? She had no idea.

In any case.

She wanted to see Ryner.

She wanted to see his stupidly healthy sleepy face and hear him tell her about what a pain this whole thing has been.

So she ran. Ran straight towards the wagon that Vois had motioned to. She closed the distance nearly instantly.

And at last, she jumped into the wagon.

“……”

Just like Vois said, that idiot was laying right there. He was obscenely sleepy, as if there had been an all-you-can-sleep special, and he had clearly been motivationless for the past ten thousand years.

It was her partner in crime, Ryner Lute.

He was always whining at her, saying “I’m sleepy, I’m sleepy,” and now here he was, taking a nap with a foolish look on his foolish face.

“……”

Ferris let Vois go and stopped at Ryner’s side.

She looked at his shoulder. At the wound that he had sustained by protecting her. It had already been wrapped up with gauze.

It was likely a wound so deep that it had reached the bone, but right now, it looked like it had been skinned from him falling over, and nothing worse.

“……”

She breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

It had all been needless fear. Her uneasiness and delusions had no basis in reality.

And for that.

“……”

For that…

“…I’m glad,” she said quietly. A small smile reached her lips, and she pressed a hand to Ryner’s messed-up hair to pet it. She sighed again wholeheartedly, and felt her composure return little by little.

Somehow, seeing the exceptionally foolish expression on his face had calmed her down and balanced her mind out.

“……”

Now that she had reigned her mind in, she turned around. She held Ryner towards herself as if to protect him.

“…What are you trying to accomplish, Vois?” Ferris asked. “What exactly is going on? Why are you here, and who are these black-clad soldiers affiliated with? And earlier, you said something about a ‘Rule Fragment.’ Are you one of Gastark’s?”

Ferris was familiar with ‘Rule Fragments.’ They were essentially Heroic Relics. The only difference was in the word—it was what the people of the far north - the people of Gastark - called them. That meant that it was possible that Vois was affiliated with Gastark, a country which was known to use dangerous Rule Fragments.

Ferris tensed herself as she glared at Vois. “Answer me, Vois. Are you an enemy? Or our ally?”

Vois smiled. “If I were an enemy, then I wouldn’t have taken care of your wounds, would I have?”

“Then what are you trying to accomplish?”

“I wonder?”

“Answer me or I’ll kill you.”

“Ahaha. Kill me? You say such disturbing things. Now, then… where to start?”

“From the beginning.”

“The beginning?”

“Mm.”

“Then I’ll start from the beginning,” Vois agreed. “But first, would you mind sharing why you’re so upset?”

Ferris’ eyes narrowed in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Vois shrugged. “This again. I understand why you were all worried earlier. You didn’t know if Ryner was okay or not, and you just kept thinking about it. ‘Is he okay? Is he safe? Is he wounded? Has something awful happened?’ I understand why you would be upset given the circumstances.”

Ferris’ glare harshened still. “What are you trying to say? No… what exactly are you?”

Vois laughed with a smile on his face. It was a frivolous smile like what a child might make. “I’m me, Ms. Ferris. Vois Fiurelle, fifteen years old. I was once the leader of the Fiurelle Group, but nowadays I’m a representative of the Anti-Roland Coalition… It’s the truth coming from a liar. But you already knew that I was a liar, didn’t you, Ms. Ferris Eris?”

Ferris nodded. After all, this was an annoying guy who did nothing but lie.

But for some reason, Vois’ smile grew happier at her nod. “Everything I will say now is a lie. It’s me lying to people. To my allies. To the world. To God—did you know? God actually does exist in this world.”

There he went, saying confusing things again. Ferris grimaced. “You’ve gone mad…”

He shook his head. “No, unfortunately not. It’d have been easier that way. If that were the case, I wouldn’t have had to bear witness to this world getting even crazier than it already was. I’d be able to avert my eyes from the world tumbling its way towards despair. But that isn’t how this happened. Perhaps it’s karma returning the favor. So I’ve become a liar. It’s heart-breaking, but that’s what I’m good at.

“…What are you talking about—”

“You are right to feel uneasy right now, Ms. Ferris,” Vois interrupted. “Mr. Ryner has been cursed by a Goddess. The curse in his special eyes—his Alpha Stigma—is a Goddess’ doing. But, well, a picture is worth a thousand words. Come, take a look.”

Vois reached into his pocket and pulled out a glass sphere that was only just bigger than his thumb. He tossed it over to her.

Ferris caught it. “What is it?” She looked down at the glass, but she couldn’t find anything out of the ordinary about it. So she looked back up at Vois. “What are you trying to do?”

“Please hold it up to Ryner and look at him through it.”

“Through the glass?”

“Yes. You’ll be able to see all sorts of truths if you do. We’ll talk afterwards.”

Ferris was doubtful, but she did as she was asked.

When she first looked through the glass, it was cloudy, and she couldn’t see through it at all. But as she stared, it cleared up little by little.

“……”

And then… it finally appeared.

At first, it was just Ryner, sleeping with that foolish look on his face, his messy bedhead adding to his 120% exhausted look.

“…Wh-what’s happening?” Ferris whispered. Because despite Ryner’s happily asleep expression, when she looked downwards at his heart, she saw thousands of naked women crawling out. It was horrific. Like countless baby spiders ripping their way out from inside of their mother, those naked women poured free, screeching all the while. They tangled Ryner up in their rubbery limbs, binding him in place. They held onto him tightly as if to seal his freedom away.

Ryner hadn’t realized. No… if Ferris hadn’t looked through the glass, she wouldn’t have realized either.

That glass had shown her a true hell.

“……”

She turned on Vois.

“What was that?”

“That’s Alpha,” Vois answered easily. “Though I assume you don’t understand what that means. Well, to put it simply, it’s a curse that the Goddesses placed on him in order to kill his power.”

Ferris looked back to Ryner through the glass. She stared at the thousands of disgusting women with matching ugly expressions who held him down. “Are you saying that these monsters are Goddesses?”

Vois shook his head. “No, that’s the curse that the Goddesses placed on him. Their real bodies are different… but, well, since they’re giving Alpha the power to kill the Solver of All Formulas, one could say that they have roughly the same strength as a Goddess…”

Ferris couldn’t even understand half of what he was saying. “Wait. Stop there. What are you talking about?” she asked, but then paused. Because there was something more important than this. So they looked straight at Vois and asked about that instead. “Who… exactly… are you?”

He laughed. An innocent smile played at his childish expression. “I’m nothing but a liar. But… this time I’m even lying to Goddesses.”

Ferris looked down at Ryner’s body, still crawling with thousands of tiny women. “So what you are saying is… these disgusting monsters… these ‘Goddesses’… are our enemies, correct?”

“…It would seem so. But they’re acting as if they were our allies.”

“So they’re our allies?”

“It would appear so, yes,” Vois answered.

“Ha. Unbelievable.”

“Oh? Then I’ll rephrase it for the sake of your satisfaction. I… I myself will not do anything to make an enemy out of you. Right now, my merit is in me saving you guys… so I’ve done just that. How’s that?”

Ferris shot him a slight smile. “Hm. If that’s all that means, then that’s fine.”

“I’m glad.”

“That means that you’re saving Ryner, correct?”

Vois nodded. “I of course will need compensation. Acting for the good of others is against the Fiurelle family’s motto—”

Ferris laughed. “Payment will be given in the form of the sword as per the Eris family motto.”

Vois’ eyes widened. “Uwah, those violent words are so like you, Ms. Ferris. I can’t help but feel nostalgic.”

Ferris shrugged. “I have no such feelings towards you.”

“Aww, really?”

“Yes.”

“I see. What a shame. Well, to tell you the truth, I also have no strong feelings about this reunion. I don’t have the time to get lost in worthless sentimentality. Now, then, shall we return to our proper business-like discussion?” Vois asked, then looked around. “Though this isn’t a great time for small talk. If we stay and chat here, Roland’s main army is likely to catch up. We can cover every detail, no matter how insignificant, as we move.”

“…Every insignificant detail. In other words, you plan to omit the parts that are inconvenient to you,” Ferris said.

Vois laughed. “Oh, but of course,” he said with a nod. “Now, then. Shall we? We’ll follow after the Nelphan army and join the troops from the Autonomous Holy City of Cassla!”

The black-clad soldiers raised their voices in agreement, and the wagon carrying Ferris, Vois, and Ryner began to move, passing through the dark night once more.

As they moved, the Nelphans led by Toale came into sight as they marched onwards.

“…Hm,” Ferris mumbled, then looked back down at Ryner. She ran her hand through his messy hair—how many times had she done that, now? She tugged at it, then tapped him. But he didn’t wake up. He had no response at all.

He truly looked peaceful. Like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“……”

She couldn’t help but smile, but soon her expression tightened once more. “Now, Vois. Shall we begin?”

---

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